How to configure SSL Encryption for your email client

With today's email clients, it's possible to use secure SSL connections for added security. Doing so ensures that if another person somehow has the ability to eavesdrop on your Internet connections, that person won't be able to view your password or the contents of your e-mail.

This page assumes that you have already followed the basic instructions to set up your email client from the configuration guide.

How to configure an email client to use the secure certification

We will use Outlook 2010 as email client for showing how the configuration should be done.

After you reach to the step where you enter the incoming and outgoing mail servers there are two possibilities:

Use your own domain and install the SSL certificate

Use mail.your_domain as incoming and outgoing mail servers, where your_domain is your custom domain. For instance if your domain is example.com the incoming/outgoing mail server should be mail.example.com

By using mail.your_domain you will need to install the SSL secure certificate.

In order to do this please click on "More Settings" on the bottom-right corner. In the "Advanced" tab you can use encrypted connection (SSL) for POP (for the incoming emails) and also for SMTP (for the outgoing emails). You need to tick the checkbox "This server requires and encrypted connection(SSL)" which will change the port to 995. Also you need to select SSL from the dropdown "Use the following type of encrypted connection" and change the Outgoing server (SMTP) from 25 to 465. Now the E-Mail Settings should look as follows:

Click OK and you should return to the main window. Click Next :

Now a message will pop up:

Click on "View Certificate" then click on "Install Certificate":

click "Next":

leave the selected option and click "Next":

leave the selected option and click "Finish":

You should receive an successful import message:

Now you can click on the "Yes" option:

You have sucesfully installed the SSL certificate and now your emails are being received/sent in a secure manner.

Use a domain that already has the SSL certificate installed on it

Use mail.your_domain.cust.b.hostedemail.com as incoming and outgoing mail servers, where your_domain is your custom domain. For instance if your domain is example.com the incoming/outgoing mail server should be mail.example.com.cust.b.hostedemail.com

This domain has installed the SSL certificate on it. Configure you POP and SMTP to use SSL by clicking on "More Settings" on the bottom-right corner. In the "Advanced" tab you can use encrypted connection (SSL) for POP (for the incoming emails) and also for SMTP (for the outgoing emails). You need to tick the checkbox "This server requires and encrypted connection(SSL)" which will change the port to 995. Also you need to select SSL from the dropdown "Use the following type of encrypted connection" and change the Outgoing server (SMTP) from 25 to 465. Now the E-Mail Settings should look as follows:

Click OK and you should be able to see the main window. Click Next :

An message will pop up:

Click on the "Yes" option because you have already the SSL certificate create on the domains used as incoming/outgoing mail server (mail.your_domain.cust.b.hostedemail.com).

Now your emails are being received/sent in a secure manner.

Conclusion

In this article we have used Outlook 2010 as example on how to install/use SSL for sending/receiving emails however the principle is the same for each mail client: